


How Will I Know?

by felicityollies



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Angst, Canon Rewrite, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Inspired by a Movie, Light Angst, Romance, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-28 00:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8423089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/felicityollies/pseuds/felicityollies
Summary: Long ago a curse was placed upon the Smoak family. Centuries later the only remaining Smoak woman lives in fear of the curse. She refuses to let herself get close to anyone, that is until Oliver Queen walks into her life. (loosely based on Practical Magic // season 1 redo)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween Everyone!

Felicity Smoak was very young when her heart was first broken. She watched her parents’ marriage fall apart. They fought endlessly until the day that her father packed up and left. She had to witness the breaking of her mother’s heart. Heard the quiet sobs in the middle of the night when Donna couldn’t sleep. There were days when the older woman didn’t even want to get out of bed. Felicity started spending more and more time at her Nana’s home.

“Us Smoak women are doomed to be alone,” her nana said, “We might know love, but we cannot keep it.”

“Why, Nana?” an eight year old Felicity asked.

“Because of the curse,” she let out a long sigh, “You know the story.”

She did, but she never wanted to believe it. Long ago her ancestor, a Jewish witch named Allona, had her heart shattered by a man who left her for another woman. Her anger and depression grew. She became hard and cold. She vowed that no man would dare love a Smoak woman. It became a curse; it twisted into something dark. Every woman from then on who let love touch them would meet the same fate as Allona. Some men died, some simply left as Felicity’s father did, and sometimes the women suffered more than just a broken heart.

Her mother’s heartbreak turned into a sickness. It overtook her like it had to others before her. Felicity Smoak at eight years old, dressed all in black, and knowing too much loss for someone so young came to live with her grandmother full time.

“I never want to fall in love,” she cried in her nana’s arms.

The older woman’s fingers moved carefully through her hair. “It’s alright child.”

After that night Felicity decided she would take precautions against falling in love. She spent time researching the spells and the proper way to write them. If she could keep herself from falling then she wouldn’t get hurt. It seemed like the perfect plan. On the full moon of a cool fall night she gathered everything she would need, making sure not to wake her nana. It probably wasn’t a good idea to do magic considering she was so inexperienced, but she put her heart into her spell and just knew that it would work.

**

_He will hear my call a mile away._

_He will whistle my favorite song._

_He can climb the tallest mountain._

_He can flip omelettes with perfection._

_He’ll be marvelously kind,_

_And his favorite shape will be an arrowhead._

_And he’ll have eyes the color of the cold sea, but as warm as the sun’s rays._

**

She repeated the words several times, chanting, visualizing the man of her dreams, and focusing all of her energy into the spell.

“The perfect person doesn’t exist and if he doesn’t exist then I can’t fall in love and die of a broken heart,” she whispered to herself when the spell was complete. “I will never fall in love.”

* * *

Years went by and Felicity let her heritage fall to the wayside. At least the witchcraft side of things. She spent more time taking apart old computers and rebuilding them with upgrades and higher speeds. It was more interesting for her to work with something that she could explain rather than magic and the impossible. Science and technology were safe, while she couldn’t trust something that created the curse that took her family from her. She didn’t even know if she believed in the spell she created when she was younger.

What did she believe in anymore?

Well, she could admit that she believed in keeping herself safe, mind, body, and soul. She kept herself distant from people. Never had friends throughout school and even when she went off to college at MIT she stayed away from others. It was only curiosity that got her testing the waters of a relationship. A date or two with a boy named Cooper, but she didn’t allow herself to get close to him. She ended things quickly and retreated back in on herself, spending most of her time in school either studying or working with her computer, sometimes not in the most legal way.

Fifteen years after she lost her family, Felicity found herself in Starling City, sitting behind a desk in the lower levels of Queen Consolidated. It was a quiet and easy job. She liked the fact she didn’t have to deal with many people and could spend her time hiding in her cubicle.

With a red pen in her mouth, a spoon stirring the sugar in her coffee by itself (it just did that sometimes when she was busy focusing on other things), and her fingers on her keyboard, she attempted to get some work done.

She didn’t get very far, though.

“Ms. Smoak,” a male voice pulled her from her thoughts.

Her hand went down on the coffee to stop the spoon from moving as she turned her gaze upwards. She was met with the sight of Oliver Queen, the son of the CEO of Queen Consolidated, and one of the most attractive people she had ever seen.

“Hi,” he said, “I’m Oliver Queen.”

“I know who you are, obviously. You’re Mr. Queen.”

“No, Mr. Queen was my father.” Oh man he was charming.

“Right, but he died. I mean he drowned, but you didn’t. You survived and came back… to listen to me babble,” she let out a slow breath, “Which will end in… 3….2….1….”

“So, I was told you could help me,” he held out a laptop to her, “I need to get some information off of this.”

She looked down at his computer, riddled with bullets, and back up to him. “Umm…”

“I spilled a latte on it,” he said without missing a beat.

“Really? Because these look like bullet holes.”

He gave a wide and extremely charming grin, “My coffee shop is in a bad neighborhood.”

These terrible lies. She shook her head, but decided not to call him out on it. Instead she took the laptop and moved her fingers over it. She probably could have fixed it, but no she wasn’t using magic. There had only been a few slips here and there, but she wasn’t allowing herself to use something so dangerous. If she didn’t trust it, she shouldn’t use it.

She plugged in the laptop and attempted to sort through some encrypted files. The more she searched through the computer the quicker she came to the realization that this was not Oliver Queen’s laptop. He sat down beside her and watched her work. They chit chatted until she was done.

Handing him the usb drive with all the information he wanted, she said, “Good luck.”

“Huh?” he took it from her.

“If you get caught with that who knows what’s going to happen. Family drama, rivalries, and all that.”

He blinked at her.

Avoiding people for so many years had really left her socially awkward. As if she wasn’t before that. “Nevermind.”

“Oh... kay,” he frowned and pocketed the drive, “Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

Felicity watched him leave and leaned back in her chair. Even when she tried to ignore the power within it nagged it’s way to the surface. She could feel something in the air. Something was coming, something big, but she had no idea what it was.

It might be time to give nana a call.

* * *

Her grandmother simply warned her to be careful and that was that. She wasn’t sure what she thought of it, but she would listen to her nana’s warning.

Days turned to weeks and during that time she saw Oliver quite a lot. He continued to lie to her. Ridiculous lies too, but somehow she trusted him. She did what he asked even if the favors were odd; she did it because part of her felt like she was doing something good.

On a particularly average morning, she stood in her kitchen with a coffee cup in her hands. Her cat Ada sat on the table. Everything seemed fine until her broom dropped to the floor, clattering against the tile. It startled her of course, but it also caused a feeling of worry and dread to fill her.

“Bad luck,” she whispered.

Ada looked up at her as if she agreed. Familiars.

Felicity shook her head and finished her coffee. She didn’t want to admit it, but she spent the rest of the day waiting for something terrible to happen. Waiting to get fired, or for her computer to get fried, or something, but nothing ever did. She made it the entire day and a good portion into the night without anything happening. The worst of the day, she could say, was the fact she was leaving the office extremely late. Inside the parking garage it was nearly empty, the sky was dark without a star visible, and suddenly she felt uneasy.

Sliding into her car, she took a deep breath. Nothing was going to happen. Everything would be fine. She turned in her seat, so that she could start backing up. A yelp left her lips when she realized there was someone in her backseat.

“What kind of horror movie crap…” she whined.

“Felicity,” a low voice said, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Oh god, how do you know my name?”

“Because you know mine,” he said lifting the hood that was covering her face.

“Oliver? Oh my god. Everything about you just became so unbelievably clear.”

He gave a huff and an annoyed expression.

“You’re bleeding.”

“I don’t need to be told that,” he sounded like he was barely clinging onto consciousness.

“I need to get you to a hospital,” she turned around to start driving.

“No!” he shouted, exerting too much energy in the process, “Not the hospital.”

She didn’t get a chance to ask where he wanted her to take him when he passed out. “What the hell?!” she slammed her hand against the steering wheel.

The lights in the parking garage flickered and a few of the cars that had alarms started going off.

“Shoot,” she quickly backed out of her spot and started driving towards the exit.

Felicity drove as quickly as she could towards her townhouse. When she got there, she quickly got out of the car and ran to open up the door in the backseat. Try as she might, she wasn’t strong enough to get him out of the car. All she did was get blood all over herself. Her pale fingers shook. The sight of bright red blood against her skin was startling.

“This is an emergency,” she breathed out.

Palm up, she pointed her first and middle finger forward. She glanced around quickly, but didn’t see anyone, so she continued. Carefully, Oliver’s body hovered and moved out of the car. She focused all of her energy on levitating him into her home. The car door closed by itself while her front door swung open. She heard a meow from Ada, but didn’t let it break her concentration as she lay Oliver on her couch.

“I should not be doing this,” she said to herself.

Ada meowed loudly.

“I do not want your opinion,” she sighed and knelt down beside Oliver.

He was still breathing, but just barely. She ripped into his jacket and tugged it off of his body. His wound was still bleeding heavily. Pressing her hand against it, she could feel his warm blood on her fingers.

“Ew,” she whispered.

Herbs flew from her kitchen and so did a large book. Yes, she had spent years avoiding magic and everything about it, but that didn’t mean she didn’t keep things around the house just in case. The magic was apart of her just as much as her Jewish roots were. She couldn’t ignore it no matter how hard she tried.

The book opened to the page she wanted while she continued to press hard down on Oliver’s shoulder. Splitting her focus, she tried to get everything she needed mixed in a bowl and at the same time try to get whatever had caused the wound out of his shoulder. It was an insane task for someone who had been extremely out of practice.

She had to want it with everything inside of her. And she did. She cared about Oliver. He had slowly become someone she liked to see even if it were just in passing. She told herself not to like him, but how could she not? He was marvelously kind, nothing like what the rumors said of him. She could even let him slide with the lies, especially now that she knew what he was doing and why he felt the need to hide things from her.

Felicity closed her eyes and worked hard to get the object inside of his wound. Suddenly, a bullet popped out and hit her hand.

“Thank god,” she muttered tossing it to the ground.

She picked up the herb mixture and slathered it onto his still bleeding wound. Placing her hands above his wound palm down, she started to whisper the spell from her book. She slowed her words and let out a shaky breath. Her fingers pressed into his neck; she could feel a steady heartbeat. Now, all she could do was wait until he woke.

She cleaned up the blood on her hands and her floor. Her body ached with exhaustion. Both zapped of energy from the spell and general magic use, but also from worry. She couldn’t let herself sleep yet; she had to know that Oliver was okay. After a couple of hours, she wiped the blood and herbs from his shoulder. His shoulder looked as if he had never been shot. She was both relieved and scared. How was she going to explain this to him?

Well, she would figure it out when he woke up. Until then, she sat there beside him, wondering how she didn’t see it before. She had tried to connect the dots of his lies, but maybe she didn’t want to believe that this vigilante out there helping the city was also Oliver Queen billionaire playboy. It just didn’t seem to click. But he was. He was the archer, taking out those creeps. Maybe she didn’t agree with putting an arrow through someone, but she knew he was doing good out there when no one else would.

Something in her felt drawn to him. It wasn’t just the gorgeous smile, the chiseled jaw, or those amazingly cool yet warm eyes. There was something about Oliver Queen that she wanted to know. Actually, she wanted to know everything. She wanted to know about these scars he kept hidden, she wanted to know why he had decided to take to the streets at night, and why of all people he had come to her that fateful day.

Felicity didn’t dare let herself believe it had anything to do with magic. If anything the idea that her spell had something to do with this made her want to push herself away from him. She knew she couldn’t let herself get any closer to him. What was she even thinking?

Oliver groaned and started to wake. She immediately scrambled to her feet. He opened his eyes and looked up with that startling blue gaze. He frowned seeming to realize he didn’t know where he was.

“What the?” he started to lean forward. His hand moved to his shoulder and he frowned further. “What did you do?”

Yeah, it was kind of hard to explain the lack of wound or stitches. “Saved you?” 

“I don’t understand…” he pushed himself up off the couch.

She was even more scared than she was before. The way he looked at her made her feel like she was back home. Boys and girls always looked at her and her family like they were freaks. As if everyone knew what she was.

“Felicity,” he got louder, “What did you do?”

“I saved your life isn’t that good enough?”

“It’s like I wasn’t even shot,” he muttered pressing at the area.

“It doesn’t matter!” she was getting defensive, “You’re healed and I’m not going to tell anyone your secret.”

Please don’t tell anyone mine.

“Are you even human?” he looked at her accusingly.

What kind of question? Now she was getting mad. “Of course I am!” the lights flickered when she shouted.

He looked around wide eyed. “I don’t believe it.”

“Then leave!” a lightbulb in the kitchen shattered.

“Gladly.” he grabbed the remnants of his jacket and disappeared into the darkness of the early morning hours.

Felicity sat back on her couch with a loud thump. It was good that he left. She could pretend she had never even started to like him. Now, she wouldn’t get her heart broken. But if that were true why did her chest ache so much?

* * *

She didn’t go into work that day, allowing herself one day to mope around. When she did go back into work, she half expected to be fired, but somehow she managed to keep her job. Maybe Oliver didn’t completely hate her or want to burn her at the stake. It was a couple days before she heard from him again. She didn’t think she was going to, but after work one night, she arrived home to see him waiting outside of her door.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, trying to hide the squeak in her voice.

“I wanted to talk to you,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders.

She swallowed thickly, but unlocked the door. “What about?”

“You know what about,” he muttered.

Sighing, she motioned for him to sit down, but he shook his head. “We don’t have to talk about anything.”

“But we do,” he was stern this time. 

“Okay.”

“I’m drawn to you,” he stated, “I can’t explain it.”

She swallowed again.

“I knew I was before I returned home.”

“Wh-what?”

He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I came back… years ago for a reason I can’t talk about right now, but I saw you. I saw you at QC, wandering through one of the offices. You were talking to yourself… about me.”

Felicity’s cheeks burned bright pink. “You saw that?”

He nodded. “Even then, I wanted to talk to you. There was just something about you,” he sounded frustrated.

Her heart pounded wildly in her chest. She felt the same way about him, but she knew it wasn’t real. It was all her stupid spell.

“That’s why I came to you and kept coming to you. That and the fact I knew you could do the things I needed,” he ran his fingers through his short hair. “And then you did….this,” he pointed to his shoulder and sighed, “I just don’t know.”

What could she do other than be honest with him?

“I’m a witch,” she finally said.

“You said you were Jewish,” he blinked a couple of times.

“I’m a Jewish witch,” she threw her hands up. She could already feel tears burning in her eyes, “I healed your wound with a spell,” she held back a sniffle, “And the reason you’re drawn to me, but can’t figure out why is because…. Is because.”

“Because?”

“When I was little… I wrote a spell to find the perfect person… but I created this person in my head that I was sure couldn’t exist,” she knew as soon as she finished speaking this was going to be it. “And I know it’s you. I wished for you. The feelings you have aren’t even real, because I tried to keep myself safe. I tried to make sure that I would never fall under my family’s curse like my mother did. She died of a broken heart because of it.”

He looked freaked out and confused. Like a million different things were going through his head and he could barely process it.

“Oliver, I’m sorry,” she whispered as a few tears rolled down her cheeks.

He shook his head again and started towards the door without another word.

“Oh god, I really messed up,” she sniffled as she slid down to the floor.

The ache in her chest hurt like nothing she had ever felt before. She thought she was saving herself pain with that spell, but it only caused herself more grief. Her feelings for Oliver were there. They had grown over the weeks she had known him. Before she had even seen what he really was. The way he had spent time in her office when he really didn’t have to, sharing a box of lo mein, and talking about whatever silly task he was having her do. But none of it was real. How could she ever know if it was real?

* * *

This time Felicity was done. She called her nana and told her that she was coming home. There was no way she could stay in Starling City like this. Boxes littered her apartment, books and various other objects levitated through the rooms and found their respective boxes. She was so sad that it had been raining for the last week. Starling City was her home, she had a job she liked, and had almost had a friend, but she knew she couldn't’ stay.

“Where are you going?”

Several books clattered to the floor.

“Sorry,” Oliver mumbled.

“What are you doing here?”

“I asked you a question first,” he shoved his hands into his pockets.

“I’m going home,” she said.

“Because of me?”

Felicity looked away from him. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“I came to apologize,” he sighed heavily. “Your door was unlocked by the way.”

“Oh,” she said softly, “Why are you apologizing?”

“Because I freaked out,” he said honestly.

“It’s my fault.”

“You know what?” he asked.

She raised a brow.

“I don’t believe in curses… I barely believed in magic until a few years ago,” he shook his head like he was pushing a memory away, “Curses only have power if you give it to them. If I believed in them, then I would believe that I’m doomed to end up like my dad.”

She pondered those words for a moment.

“And another thing…” he started to say, “I wished for you too.”

Her heart fluttered in her chest. “Wh-what?”

“I mean it, Felicity,” he stepped closer to her, “I swear I thought I dreamed you into existence when I saw you in QC.”

“Oliver,” she whispered.

“I want to get to know you, I want to spend time with you, and I want… if _you_ want, to join me,” he was barely an inch away from her now. “You can help in so many ways,” he looked deep into her eyes, making her feel like he was seeing right into her soul. “I want to be with you.”

There was an electricity between them. Something so energizing, so pure, and passionate. She felt was if the feeling was going to swallow her whole. Was she really going to do this? Could she join his crusade and be close to him? Could she have him? She wanted to believe what he said about curses.

She pressed her lips to his. The spark between them exploded. She suddenly felt like she couldn’t get enough of him. Her hands found his face and she kissed him with everything she had. Every inch of her hummed with the passion she felt for Oliver. Her chest filled with warmth and energy. She had never felt anything like this before. All she knew was that she wanted to be with him, curses be damned. She wanted him, every part of him, and she never wanted to let go.

“Oliver,” she breathed out as she pulled back from the kiss.

“What?” he let his breath fan across her lips.

“We need to slow down,” she whispered.

“We’ll do whatever you want,” he said.

“Good.”

They slowly pulled apart.

“And Felicity.”

She looked into his eyes.

“I’m never going to break your heart.”

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I hope everyone enjoyed it. It took me forever to get down for some reason, but anyway... let me know what you think!


End file.
